The admission
will embarrass many of his followers as they claimed it showed that King
Mswati, who rules Swaziland as sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, had
invented a new kind of democracy.

It was, Reuters
reported, ‘merely a name change for foreign consumption’.

The news agency
reported the king saying, ‘The world really doesn’t understand the Tinkhundla
system, but everybody can understand monarchical democracy. It’s an English
name. This monarchical democracy is a marriage between the traditional monarchy
and the ballot box, all working together under the monarchy.’

Swaziland is
holding it national election on Friday (20 September 2013). All political parties
are banned from taking part. The poll will select 55 members of the House of
assembly, the other 10 members are appointed by the king. No members of the
30-strong Senate House are elected by the people: the king appoints 20 senators
and the others are elected by the House of Assembly.